By Bronson Pettitt
Jan. 14, 2011 / Mexico Weekly
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is offering to help Mexico create a national forensic database on unidentified cadavers.
With the corpses of as many as 3,000 people each year going unidentified, ICRC forensic area coordinator Morris Tidball-Binz says Mexico could follow in the footsteps of Colombia, who after years of drug-related violence began a cadaver identification program in 2008, Milenio reported Friday.
The Colombian program uses a single methodology: Photographs of bodies must be taken at the same distance, and unique traits such as teeth, tattoos, scars or wounds must be identified and accurately recorded onto a secure national database.
Such is not the case in Mexico, however. In addition to structural shortcomings – the result of years of meager budgets – state institutions' organization is something of a mosaic, with different methodologies, doctors who are not specialized in forensic science and even an absence of proper record-keeping.
Obstacles of domestic mobility, the high number of immigrants who pass through Mexico and the growing number of unidentified cadavers also complicate efforts to launch a unified system, according to Milenio.
“One of the greatest challenges is how to overcome the diversity of procedures, laws and regulations that exist in a country such as this,” Tidball-Binz said. “But the identification of these cadavers is of great importance to put an end to many people's suffering.”
A Mosaic of Procedures
In September 2010, forensic service directors from across the country met for the first time in Mexico City to share their experiences and methodologies with the International Red Cross. The meeting made it obvious what had been ignored for so long: Procedures varied greatly from state to state, Milenio reported.
Worse yet, it was discovered that judicial agencies were uncoordinated. There is no way for the Attorney General's Office in one state, for example that of Morelos, to be aware in a short amount of time that a body was found in neighboring Mexico City that matched the traits of a missing person from the former state.
“That's why the idea is that we make sure that all of the forensic services operate with forms and standards to identify bodies, so that everyone can share the information,” Tidball-Binz said.
During the September meeting, experts from the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of Colombia and the Medical Legal Service of Chile offered some alternatives. The consensus was to implement two relatively simple solutions: create a single manual and set the foundations for a database of forensic information.
The Mexican system would consist of physical features, traits and fingerprints, but an option to include DNA samples was discarded due to its complexity and cost, Milenio wrote.
Rather, the program's success, Tidball-Binz said, will be based on a simpler approach: standardized paperwork distributed to all forensic services.
“With basic physical information that can be included on pre-established forms, so many searches can be shortened,” he said. “In Mexico these forms don't exist and authorities don't have anything to compare cadavers. But if there was a form that said, 'male subject, suffered such and such fractures, has these dental features, has this type of tattoo,' the possibility of successfully identifying a body is greater,” he said, Milenio reported.
Additional information:
* Sixty to 70 people are sent to a mass grave in Mexico City each week.
* Amid drug-trafficking-related violence in northern Mexico, mass graves in cities such as Tijuana have run out of space.
* Unidentified bodies have two destinations in Mexico: be buried in municipal cemeteries or mass graves, or be used for research purposes in universities, according to Milenio.
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